44 there, at the same place, perhaps ex- pectIng to see you graduate from med schooL W HAT kind of name is Celeste? Light, airy, celestial. What kind of girl is Celeste? Slight, with smooth dark hair and shiny eyes. One who smokes Greek oval cigarettes while waiting in line for a movie near the corner of Third A venue and Fifty-seventh Street. One to be looked at throughout the movie, with constant side glances that are bound to be noticed by her, her date, and your own date. But you manage to find out that she goes to an art class on Wednesday nights. HopJes are Dutch candy, cube- shaped, coffee-flavored, individually wrapped In two wrappers, the inner one silver. Celeste gives one to you when she declines your offer to take her home after her art class. And she gets on the crosstown bus alone. Braque, Gris, Miró hang on the walls of the living room at Celeste's parents' apartment. Soon she is to move out, though, to a flat on Bank Street. Now she lets you kiss her on the couch surrounded by Braque, Gris, Miró, and perhaps the taste of her lips and the flavor of those paîntings the smell of her neck and the fragrance of those painters are aU mingled in your mind to produce a pleasant haze. (When (') ....... you ask her, afterward, what scent she was wearing, she laughingly in- forms you that it was merely an under- arm deodorant.) But you have come far; the lurking janissaries are all for- gotten, the Turks all out of sight. Bank Street on a May evening makes you wonder about the perma- nence of things. What is lasting? Ce- leste, you yourself, the whIspenng trees, the glowing street ligh ts, the mysterious town houses with an occasional softly lit window? The evening is young and warm. You decide that the time, the place, and you, the actors, all comhine into a unique quantum whose essence will somehow survive. At any rate, you think it should. You consider Celeste and yourself lovers, and the two of you slip into a small grocery store to buy sliced turkey, cucumber", and rolls be- fore going upstairs, where, with the aid of mayonnaise, these ingredients com- bine into tasty, memorable sandwiches. Later, on the couch, she exclaims, "0 h, you are seducing me!" Afterward, she makes you feel good by comparing the muscles on your hip to those of Greek statues. Then she makes you feel bad by insisting that you leave. "I don't like to find last night's leftovers in the morning," she says. You think that's a pretty mean thing to say, but you shrug it off your rhinoceros hide. Your illusions are shattered the next day in Fort Tryon Park, when Celeste r "" \... " - , ., .,." f """ i. \ / " ... t: :l -- :... 1 ) "Damn 'tt, M'tss Renzell l I'm not reporting Ë:!. sick. I f!:!!!. s'tck " MAY 9. 1970 says to you, "It's so nice to have a lover in the springtime." Now, since your sense of possibility abandons you for a moment, you can interpret this in only one of three ways: either she n1eanS it straight, or she means it ironically, or, what's even worse, pejoratively. You choose thIs last possibility, in the light of what she said about "last night's leftovers." And you get mad at her. Sensing an insult to your manhood, you sulk, but to pass the time away you play chess with her on the grass in the spring- time, buy creamsicles for her from pathetic venders with pushcarts, and draw satirical sketches, whIch she ig- nores. Thus a misleadingly romantic veneer covers an unresolved maSs of misunderstandings, wounded pride, an- ger . You talk to her about your summer plans for travelling in Europe. You in- vite her to come along, hut the tone you use (joking, superficial) does not lead her to treat it as a serious offer, and she shrugs it off. Besides, she may have plans of her own. And anyway you don't really know if you want her along. I.S>VE letter from Rome: DEAR CELESTE, I love you very much. Please believe me. (Signed) But thIs letter wasn't sent; if sent, it wasn't received; if received, it wasn't read; if read, it was ignored. Excerpt from a four-page fragment entitled "The Kiss," dating from his first encounter with Celeste: . . . your eyes, at first glance: the ear- nest concentration of a child. . . reflections of an eternal peace in those tvvo pools, \vhose depth invites me . . . yes, the prom- ise came from your eyes. . . . Need we go on? Celeste's instincts told her to beware of this young man. He was romantically inclined. S UMMER ITINERARY: New York- London- Vienna- Budapest- Vi- enna - Frankfurt - Luxembourg- Brussels - Amsterdam - Copenhagen - M unIch-Salzburg- Vienna-Salz- burg- Venict' - Florence - Rome- Florence- Rome- Florence- Verona - Milan - Antibes - Paris - New York. In Vienna, our young man runs into Joe Golden, who had been Celeste's escort on that memorable night at the movies. Joe is affable and, if not af- fl uent, ambitious. He says he knew Celeste only casually, through the Ski Club, and reflects, with a shake of the head (or ItS mental equivalent), "She